Police eye 3 suspects behind South Upi vice mayor ambush

INQUIRER FILES

COTABATO CITY — Police are tracking down three to five persons who could be behind the ambush of South Upi Vice Mayor Roldan Benito in Maguindanao del Sur on Friday, August 2, a top official in the province said.

Colonel Roel Sermese, director of the Maguindanao del Sur police, also said they had activated the Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) Benito to fast-track the investigation of the ambush that killed the vice mayor and his close aid Weng Marcos and injured his wife and 11-year old daughter in the town’s Barangay Pandan.

Sermese, who headed the SITG, which had the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), the Regional Forensic Unit in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (BAR) police office among its members, said they were still gathering more information and were looking towards personal grudge and land conflict as possible motives behind the attack.

Benito, a member of the Teduray-Lambangian indigenous group in South Upi, was driving his orange Mitsubishi pick-up when waylaid by the perpetrators. His wife Analyn, village chairperson of Pandan, South Upi, and a child were slightly hurt and are now recuperating in an undisclosed hospital.

“We are hunting down the persons of interest (POI) because they have warrants of arrest for other crimes,” Sermese said but did not name names.

Scene of the Crime Operatives (Soco) and the forensic unit investigation found physical evidence in the ambush site that indicated the gunmen had positioned themselves in the area several hours before the ambush.

Mayor Reynalbert Insular said Benito never mentioned anything about threats to his life or his family but said the vice mayor used to be locked in a land dispute in Barangay Bahar, which was already settled three years back.

“The dispute started about 20 years ago but was already peacefully settled in 2021,” Insular said.

Timuay Labi Leticio Datuwata, supreme leader of the Timuay Justice and Governance (TJG) of the Teduray-Lambangian tribe, said they regarded the killing of the vice mayor as part of the unsolved killings of Teduray leaders that continued up to the present and had something to do with their ancestral land.

Datuwata said more than 70 Teduray and Lambangian leaders and community members had been killed, ambushed, or massacred since the approval of Republic Act 11054, also known as the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) which created the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and should have been a mechanism for inclusive peace in the region.

The group Justice for Roldan Benito Movement (JRBM), composed of Teduray and Lambangian leaders, is calling for a speedy
investigation of Benito and other Teduray killings in the BARMM.

“We demand actions, not merely statements of condemnations. JRBM demands accountability for his death and advocates for a safer, just community for all,” said Rocky Batitao, JRBM chair.